Flora of New Zealand Series

Herb 7-45 cm tall, very sparsely branched from the base and sometimes also above. Stems with strigillose lines running down from margins of petioles, hairy all round above. Lamina of lf narrowly to broadly ovate, 1-3 × 1.2-2 cm. Floral tube 0.9-1.4 mm deep, glandular-hairy. Petals white, 7-11 × 5-8 mm. Capsule with glandular hairs, and sometimes with a few strigillose hairs, 3.9-5.2 cm long; fruiting pedicels 1.5-2.5 cm long.

N.: mountains from the Urewera S.; S.: close to the Main Divide, from Nelson to the Takitimu Mountains in Fiordland, but most frequent in Nelson and Canterbury, extending E. of the Main Divide in the mountains of Marlborough, Canterbury, and Otago to the vicinity of Dunedin.

Endemic.

Tussock grassland, shrubland, open scrub, usually above bushline, but extending lower in open places, along streams in forest.

FL Dec-Feb.

Raven and Raven treated E. perplexum Kirk, accepted by Allan (1961) as a distinct sp., as a synonym of E. chlorifolium. They also noted that some plants treated by Allan as E. chlorifolium var. kaikourense Cockayne are referable to E. chlorifolium, whereas they treated var. kaikourense sens. strict. as a synonym of E. wilsonii Cheeseman.